Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming back writer and poet Angélique Jamail of Houston, Texas, with “A Tree Falls in a Subdivision,” a finalist in our short story contest. This is a zany tale of a suburban woman’s unusual sin: “I chewed the tree down; I freely admit that. It was a wrong thing to do, and I will probably not do it again.” Acknowledging the violence of the act, she finds herself emboldened and entertained by the neighbors’ inability to grasp what she has done. This darkly humorous tale, told with unflinching earnestness, is a dreamlike allegory for the way society fails to see women as people with desires and agency. The title is a play on the philosophical exercise that asks if a tree falling in the woods makes a noise if no one is present to hear and witness it. Angélique asks, if a woman does something unseemly in plain view will anyone acknowledge or understand what she has done?
“For a few weeks, the novelty of catching the neighbors off-guard pleased me, so much that I even sat out there when it rained, under a big umbrella to keep my amusement dry. I chuckled inwardly over my needlepoint, sitting upon my conquest, viewing my entire street from a low, disintegrating vantage point. I must have seemed odd: who sits in front of their house anymore? You’d be surprised how many cars collided as their occupants looked at my yard full of flaking tree bones in morbid curiosity, looked at me as I stared back at them, the flossed needle dipping in and out of my sampler all the while.”
Read “A Tree Falls in a Subdivision” in Synkroniciti’s “Dreams” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Angélique Jamail is a Lebanese-American author whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Equinox, New Reader Magazine, Waxwing, The Milk of Female Kindness, Femmeliterate, Literary Mama, and many others.
The first time she read one of her stories to an audience was fourth grade; it was a character-building experience. Her books include A Narrowing Path (fiction, Memento Vivere Press) and The Sharp Edges of Water (poetry, Odeon Press). Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net (for essay), has been a finalist for the New Letters Prize in Poetry, and has won various essay contests. She serves on the Board of Directors for Mutabilis Press and is the Director of Creative Writing at The Kinkaid School. She’s also the creator of the popular zine Sonic Chihuahua.